The Road to Omaha: NCAA Baseball Tournament Thread

LSU has a black reliever named Chad Jones. He's also a starting cornerback for the football team.

 

Who was most likely the impetus for his post.

And you're absolutely right about the pictures.

 

Oops :-[
Hadn't been paying close attention to the game.

AP has moved a couple of Virginia pictures in the last few minutes, though.

 

Just felt like I had to brag a bit. No AP ... well, anything ... for tomorrow's games, so I had to piece some stuff together.
Taking a quote from an AP notebook item, a few quotes from the press conference transcript from Friday, a little rehashed material, a bit of info from a school website, and a little general knowledge, I managed to piece together a 20-inch preview story for one of tomorrow's games.
I feel like MacGyver.

 

who needs some work on that hair.

 

Who cares?

Too few potential Bob Gibsons actually pick up a baseball, and that is sad.

 

Pitching generally isn't what wins College World Series, so I figured Virginia might be in trouble. And in its first CWS game, the Cavaliers give up as many runs as they had in six previous NCAA tournament games. But U.Va. got screwed on two bad calls, one on a would-be extra-base hit that was wrongly called a foul ball and one on a ball that went off the LSU batter's bat but was called a hit batsman.

 

Mainieri obviously put a lot of stock in winning his first game, bringing Louis Coleman out of the LSU bullpen for the eighth.

Coleman threw 16 pitches and will start Monday night vs. the Hogs. He's got a 3/4 delivery and is tough to hit.

LSU's lineup is really good, top to bottom, but plenty of pop. They win Monday, I'd like their chances to get title No. 6, the first w/out Slip Bertram.

 

A surprising decision by Arizona State to save Mike Leake for Tuesday's game. I would figure that the Sun Devils would want to give that guy the ball as often as possible.

 

I guess this is the "new" baseball. Winning the second game is more important than winning the first.
A couple of weeks ago, I met up with my old high school coach and teammate. Now, one is the manager and the other the coach of a Cal League team. The topic came up as to whether T.Gwynn should start Strasburg in the first game of the regional or save him for the second game.
They got into a shouting match in the dugout during batting practice (it was f***ing hilarious). The manager insisted the second game is more important. The coach disputed it, saying if you try to save a pitcher you usually get burned.
As it turned out, it didn't matter for San Diego State because Strasburg pitched the first game and lost anyway. It didn't work out for CS Fullerton yesterday. Jury still out on Arizona State.

 

First one was indeed a bad call. I was listening to the game on WWL while en route to work, and even LSU's radio guys agreed that it should have been fair. The second, though, looked like the right call. Replays I saw showed the pitch appeared to hit on the batter's knuckles.

 

They've done that a few times with Coleman this season.